30 Minute Halves - No Rebounds On Penalties?

The International Football Association Board are investigating a variety of rule book changes when it comes to the future of football.

A new strategy document has been produced and put forward with a number of suggestions designed to deal with football's 'negativities' as a head line suggestion is the scrapping of the two periods of 45 minutes to be instead replaced by two periods of 30 minutes but with the clock stopped when the ball goes out of play.

The sense behind this is (Ifab) say that there is only 60 minutes of 'effective playing time' out of the current 90 and this change would limit time wasting.

Other suggestions in the document propose that penalty spot kicks can no longer be followed up, so if a penalty is saved or rebounds off the woodwork, a referee would now award a goal kick if this change is taken on.

Other ideas include a stadium clock linked to a referee's watch and new rules allowing players to pass to themselves or dribble the ball when taking a freek kick.

Stakeholders in the game have put forward the ideas to Ifab to tackle 'on field issues' as part of a 'Fair Play strategy' and that encompasses three aims:

improving player behaviour and increasing respectincreasing playing timeincreasing fairness and attractiveness

Whilst some of the suggestions would undoubtedly require ratification and a rewritting of the rulebook, some of the proposals could be implemented immediately, especially in the case of timewasting, stricter adherance to goalkeepers holding the ball for six seconds and match officials being far more stringent in calculating and applying additional time at the end of halves.

These suggestions also include the referee stopping his clock:

from a penalty being awarded to the spot-kick being takenfrom a goal being scored until the match resumes from the kick-offfrom asking an injured player if he requires treatment to play restartingfrom the referee showing a yellow or red card to play resumingfrom the signal of a substitution to play restartingfrom a referee starting to pace a free-kick to when it is taken

Some of the proposals are in fact already at test stage such as the idea of only allowing club captain's to speak to referees to save players crowding round the official and that's being trialed in this year's Confederations Cup, and I've already covered the 'ABBA' system of penalties with team A taking the first kick and the team B taking two before team A take their second.

Other points for discussion as listed include freekicks being able to be dribbled to encourage a fouled player to continue their attacking move immediately as well as substitutes leaving the pitch at the closest point as opposed to returning to the half way mark.

Others:

passing to yourself at a free-kick, corner and goal-kicka stadium clock which stops and starts along with the referee's watchallowing the goal-kick to be taken even if the ball is movinga goal-kick being taken on the same side that the ball went out ona 'clearer and more consistent definition' of handballa player who scores a goal or stops a goal with his hands gets a red carda keeper who handles a backpass or throw-in from a team-mate concedes a penaltythe referee can award a goal if a player stops a goal being scored by handling on or close to the goal-linereferees can only blow for half-time or full-time when the ball goes out of playa penalty kick is either scored or missed/saved and players cannot follow up to score to stop encroachment into the penalty area

Former referee and Ifab Technical Director David Elleray told the BBC.

'Referees, players, coaches and fans all agree that improving player behaviour and respect for all participants and especially match officials, increasing playing time and the game's fairness and attractiveness must be football's main priority.'

Discussions will now be held at various meetings before a decision is taken on whether to develop these suggestions further or discard them.